What's next for Apple: Blood sugar monitoring or a tie-up with Adidas & Nike for smart clothing?

The upcoming software update (WatchOS 4), for Apple Watch will also offer new fitness features.

That Apple is heavily invested in health and fitness is quite obvious. The Apple Watch is a go-to fitness accessory for anyone who also owns an iPhone. And the Watch has done better than many estimates too. Apple doesn’t release individual sales figures for the Watch but firms like Canalys have been making informed guesses based on shipments and supply chains. According to the Feb 2017 Canalys report, Apple Watch holds 49% of the global smartwatch market while the next two closest competitors are FitBit (17%) and Samsung (15%).

It only makes sense that Apple partner with more fitness oriented firms to expand on the Watch’s capabilities. We’re headed to a select briefing in L.A. – of which we have no idea – but it should be related to health & fitness. One of the rumours doing the rounds is support for blood glucose monitoring. Watch itself only has sensors for heart rate monitoring and these are not capable of detecting blood glucose levels. So the only obvious choices would be special bands with this functionality built in or a separate accessory that you wear, which in turn also pairs with Watch and iPhone. Note that this would be a big deal because it would be a non-invasive type of monitoring. Traditional glucose monitors do have to prick the skin to take a reading. To check sugar levels in a non-invasive manner is a big technological challenge. In case of the functionality being built into the watch band, it would also need to have a built in battery since regular bands cannot draw power from the watch.

There are other possibilities apart from the blood sugar monitoring – Apple could partner with sportswear companies like Adidas and Nike for smart clothing and shoes. Once again, this would mean that the clothing would have sensors built in (to track activity levels, heartbeat etc) and will transmit this data wirelessly to the Watch.

A pair of Nike shoes. (Image: AFP)

You may already heard about GymKit – Apple’s platform that helps pair the Watch with gym equipment. Users wearing Watch can just hold it up to supported gym equipment like treadmills, indoor bikes and elliptical trainers to get a customized workout plans and synchronized data. The idea is simple: gym equipment usually monitors some of your levels but they don’t always match with data your Watch is feeding you. The gym equipment may provide more accurate distance data while Watch will be more accurate with heart rate. With GymKit, this data will be in sync, building upon the strengths of both,

The upcoming software update (WatchOS 4) will also offer new fitness features such as personalized coaching and motivation, high-intensity interval training and new music features (music can start automatically with workouts). Apart from the GymKit and WatchOS 4 features, all this is obviously conjecture. All will be revealed in just a couple of days.

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